


empty, devoid of life

by LydiaOfNarnia



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 15:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11016492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaOfNarnia/pseuds/LydiaOfNarnia
Summary: There is a mug sitting on the table.Harry can't take his eyes off of it. When he looks at Speirs, he realizes how hard the other man is tryingnotto look at it.





	empty, devoid of life

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really really really sorry but so much of what I've written has been fluffy that I needed something dark
> 
> Of course, the characters in this fic are based off of their fictional portrayals from the miniseries Band of Brothers, and I mean no disrespect to the real-life veterans!
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [renelemaires](http://renelemaires.tumblr.com/)!

There is a mug on the table.

It’s a piece of white ceramic, bordered with baby blue flowers that hang along the sides like painted vines. Large black lettering in the center labels the cup _“SUGAR LIPS”._ It's a joke mug, probably given as a gift from Luz or Perconte -- maybe even from Ron himself, if his sense of humor goes that far. Whoever it is from, the mug is clearly well-loved. It is empty now, but there is a coffee-stained ring near the top. The mug has gone unwashed since the last time it was set down.

Staring at it makes Harry uncomfortable, but it's no worse than looking anywhere else in the house. At least this is innocent -- a tiny piece of familiarity when it should no longer exist.

When was the last time anyone used this cup? Harry swallows hard, realizing he has a good idea. This is what finally gets him to tear his gaze away to scan the rest of the living room.

“Is he really serious about this?” he finally croaks, voice hoarse in the stifled atmosphere. It's hard to make out anyone’s faces in the dim living room, but Nixon turns his head to give Harry what he's sure is a skeptical look.

At least Harry isn't the only one feeling massively uncomfortable here. Winters’s controlled posture doesn't show it, but Nixon’s shoulders are hunched in on himself as if he'd rather be anywhere but here. Harry can't imagine what he looks like, but he doubts he's much better. The entire house feels like a crypt -- there are no open windows, no lights switched on, no places for fresh life to circulate. They've stepped back in time -- back two weeks ago, when this was a place people lived instead of an echoed memory.

“I get the whole all-encompassing depression thing,” Nixon says in an uncomfortable voice. “And I’m empathetic, I really am, but isn’t this this a bit much?”

Winters shoots him a clear warning look. Nixon is characteristically unashamed, moving towards the couch and running his fingers over the leather. It breaks beneath his touch -- that hasn't been touched for weeks either. His face twists. “There's dust here.”

“There's dust everywhere,” says Harry.

The job of cleaning the house was never left up to Speirs. He could clean, of course, with that spotless precision instilled in you by the military -- but he always left things feeling so sanitary afterwards. “It's alright not to like clutter,” Lipton always said, “but a house still needs to feel like someone lives there.” Lipton always cleaned the house; with his practiced hand, it stayed neat while still retaining the warmth a home needs.

There is no warmth here anymore -- literally. Harry shivers, pulling his jacket tighter around him. Would it kill Speirs to turn on the heat?

Winters sighs, and finally takes the step no one else has been bold enough to: he crosses the room and flicks on a light switch.

Immediately, the room is illuminated. Harry starts to sigh in relief, just at being able to see again, but it catches in his throat as he takes in the room around him. Forget ‘lived in’ -- this place looks as if it's occupants just stepped out a moment ago. There is a sweater draped over the back of a nearby chair; a book lies open on the couch, spine long since settled into a crease; an ash tray sits on the mantle, guarding several stubbed out cigarettes.

“Jesus,” Nixon mutters, as Winters’s shoulders slump. “He hasn't changed a thing.”

“This isn't healthy,” Winters says.

“No kidding. This is like emotional cancer. What, has the guy been living out of his room all this time?”

“I saw a sleeping bag on the porch,” pipes up Harry. “I don't think he's gone in the bedroom much.”

Nixon runs a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Holy shit.”

Speirs walks back into the room, three water bottles clutched in his hands. He seems surprised by the light, before his eyes rake over the visitors with something like suspicion. “Sorry,” he says, handing the bottles out. “I would have turned that on.”

His hair is unwashed, hanging in greasy strands over his forehead. He hasn't shaved in a few days, at least; his eyes are bloodshot, skin sallow. He's wearing an old shirt and washed out jeans that Harry is certain he saw him in last week.

“Ron --” Harry starts, but Nixon cuts him off.

“You've got to get out of here for a while. Come on, you can't leave this place like this. Either you've got to clean it up or go somewhere else for a while, but you can't live this way.”

Harry feels nauseous just standing in this room. His mind races with thoughts of the funeral, of black suits and a closed coffin, of Ron standing stone-faced at the head of the procession. He remembers the contrast between that Ron and the one he heard on the phone, desperate and panting that “there's been an accident.” He remembers the way Ron crumpled in on himself in the hospital waiting room, too broken to even wave off his friends when they tried to offer him some small comfort.

It's too much. Christ, what if it were him and Kitty? What if it had been her gone, the two of them splintered apart forever, instead of --

It hadn't been Kitty, but the loss cuts just as deep, just as unspeakable.

Nixon and Speirs are arguing about something, but Harry doesn't want to listen. His eyes are drawn, unwillingly, back to the mug on the table once more. He thinks back to the last time that mug’s owner set it down, the final time lips touched its rim. It hasn't been moved since -- god, it's right where he left it.

He doesn't realize what he's doing until his hand seizes the mug’s handle. All he knows is that he can't stand looking at it, just knowing --

He lifts the mug off the table.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The voice is so sharp that Harry jumps, fumbling. The mug slips out of his grip, and falls to the floor with a bone-shattering crash.

Speirs steps up to him, argument abandoned. His eyes are locked on the pieces of splintered porcelain littering the floor. There is a look in his eyes -- dangerous, murderous, that same darkness that lurks in Captain Speirs the murderer, Captain Speirs the legend. Harry never believed in those horror stories, not really -- but now, as Speirs raises his gaze to meet him, he is face-to-face with a nightmare.

“What the hell are you doing?” Speirs snarls again. “What do you think --”

“Ron,” Winters starts, but Speirs is livid.

“It didn't belong to you. You don't belong here!”

Harry stumbles back, away from the beasts contained in the black depths of Speirs’s eyes. The other man continues to advance, and Harry finds himself scrambling for the door. “Get out! None of you belong here, it's not your place to be here! Leave!”

Nixon steps forward as Harry fumbles frantically with the door. “Look, we just want --”

“I don't care,” Speirs hisses, rounding on him. “I don't care what you want. It doesn't matter. You need to leave.”

For a long moment, there is silence. Harry lingers in the open doorway, ready to bolt. Nixon and Speirs remain locked in a stare-down, neither willing to budge, both bodies frozen in icy tension.

Winters is the one to finally break the spell. “Okay,” he says in that calm tone. “We’re going. We’ll leave right now.”

Nixon seems furious as he finally looks away -- at Ron or himself, Harry doesn't know. He stalks over to the door and Winters follows, hands held up in surrender. “Ron, if you need anything, you can always call. You know that.”

“Yeah,” Speirs says. “I know.”

The door slams shut behind them.


End file.
